Gauntlet was one of the first multiplayer dungeon-crawl arcade games, bringing the fantasy adventuring party to arcades and home computers as a real-time, cooperative experience and establishing a template for the co-op action RPG.
Overview
"Warrior needs food, badly." Anyone who stood at an arcade in 1986 probably heard that voice. Gauntlet, designed by Ed Logg for Atari Games and released in late 1985, packed four players around one wide cabinet, each controlling a fantasy hero: the Warrior, the Valkyrie, the Wizard or the Elf. Together, or in competition, they fought through top-down mazes swarming with ghosts, grunts, demons and sorcerers, grabbing treasure, keys and food and racing for the exit. It is one of the first multiplayer dungeon-crawl arcade games and the moment the adventuring The party of tabletop fantasy became a real-time, coin-operated experience.
Origins
Logg, already famous for co-creating Asteroids and Centipede, said the idea came from his son's enthusiasm for Dungeons & Dragons and from his own interest in Dandy (1983), a four-player dungeon game for Atari's 8-bit home computers written by John Palevich. Development ran from 1983 to 1985 under designers Logg and Roger Zeigler, on some of the most elaborate hardware Atari had built. The working title, Dungeons, became legally unavailable in April 1985, and the game was renamed Gauntlet in May. It was the company's first coin-op with a voice-synthesis chip.
After release, Palevich threatened legal action, arguing that the core concept was his. The matter was settled without a lawsuit, reportedly with Atari Games giving him a Gauntlet machine, and Dandy was later reworked by Atari Corporation as Dark Chambers (1988). The game also resembled Time Bandit, whose designer said both games simply descended from earlier maze shooters.
How it plays
Each player's hero has distinct strengths, a simple form of the character class: the Warrior hits hardest in melee, the Wizard has the most powerful magic, the Valkyrie the best armor, and the Elf the greatest speed. Monsters pour from generators that must be destroyed to stem the tide, and the most dangerous enemy, Death, can be stopped only by magic potions. Health drains slowly even when nothing is attacking, creating a constant clock, and food restores it, unless someone shoots the food. When a hero dies, another coin revives him in place, so determined players could keep going indefinitely, though scores were divided by the credits spent.
The narrator made the game famous. Voiced by Ernie Fosselius and encoded for a Texas Instruments speech chip, it reminded players of the rules ("Shots do not hurt other players, yet"; "Remember, don't shoot food"), scolded them ("Elf shot the food"), and warned when life force ran low ("Valkyrie is about to die").
Reception & impact
Gauntlet was highly profitable from its launch. In the United States it topped Play Meter's arcade charts from January to March 1986 and again in May; RePlay ranked it the second-highest-grossing arcade game of 1986, and the AMOA named it the year's top-earning dedicated cabinet. Atari sold 7,848 cabinets, later adding a cheaper two-player version. In Japan, Namco's release was also a success. Home computer conversions by U.S. Gold topped the British charts in December 1986 and sold more than 300,000 copies in the UK by 1988, and the game won Game of the Year at the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards. Tengen's NES version (1988) was the first NES game developed in the United States.
Legacy
Gauntlet II (1986) folded in ideas submitted by players in an Atari design contest; The Deeper Dungeons (1987) offered 512 new levels for home computers, many designed by players in a contest. The series continued through Gauntlet Legends (1998), Dark Legacy and a 2014 reboot. More broadly, Gauntlet showed that dungeon-crawling fantasy could be fast, social and immediate, a strand of action RPG design that runs through cooperative loot-driven games such as Diablo and its successors.
Marginalia
- Designer Ed Logg, co-creator of Asteroids and Centipede, said it was inspired by his son's interest in Dungeons & Dragons.
- Its working title was Dungeons; that name became unavailable in April 1985, and it was renamed Gauntlet in May.
- It was Atari's first coin-operated game with a speech-synthesis chip; the narrator was voiced by Ernie Fosselius.
- The cabinet names the heroes Thor the Warrior, Thyra the Valkyrie, Merlin the Wizard and Questor the Elf.
- Health drains steadily even without enemies, so food and coins keep the party alive.
- John Palevich, author of the 1983 Atari computer game Dandy, claimed Gauntlet borrowed his concept; the dispute was settled without a suit.
- Tengen's NES version was the first NES game developed in the United States.
Quick answers
- When was Gauntlet first released?
- Gauntlet was first released in 1985 (arcade).
- What kind of work is Gauntlet?
- Gauntlet is an action RPG in the Action RPGs & Hack-and-Slash and First-Person Dungeon Crawlers ('Blobbers') tradition, released for Arcade, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Atari ST, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Apple IIGS, NES, MS-DOS, Macintosh and Master System.
- Why is Gauntlet important?
- Gauntlet was one of the first multiplayer dungeon-crawl arcade games, bringing the fantasy adventuring party to arcades and home computers as a real-time, cooperative experience and establishing a template for the co-op action RPG.
